Racism In Video Games

 

 Growing up as a kid who enjoyed playing video games on a somewhat daily basis, I was very accustomed to all of the warnings about its hazards: "It's bad for your eyes," "It makes you lazy," or even, "It makes you dumb!" All of these warnings I could understand, but never really paid too much attention to them. I guess you can say I was just a young kid who really didn't think twice about the negative affects of playing video games. This negative affect, however, is much tougher to ignore.

In an article written in the Huffington Post, writer David Freeman accounts for a rather obscure influence that video games can have on people: racism. Freeman explains the analysis done by an Ohio State researcher that noted when a white player uses a black avatar in a video game in an aggressive, violent fashion, he/she is most likely to view black people as more dangerous as a result. The reason for this can be explained by confirmation bias, which we have discussed in class. There is already a negative stereotype embedded within many people that black people are aggressive and violent. Playing a violent video game as a black character simply reinforces these beliefs. The issue with this process is very clear. If we are constantly reinforcing our negative, harmful stereotypes towards people, it can lead to more aggressive behavior.

The Ohio State study co-author, Dr. Brad Bushman, conducted an experiment where he took 126 undergraduate students (60% white), and randomly assigned them to play a video game as either a white or black avatar. Some of the players were assigned a violent task such as breaking out of prison, whereas others were assigned something nonviolent, such as finding a chapel without hurting anyone.

The observations that Bushman was able to gather supported the above arguments. The white students who used a black avatar to break out of jail showed a very negative, aggressive attitude towards black people. Bushman even took the experiment a step further and concluded that these same students were more than likely to agree with the following statement: "If blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites."

In order to help prove his observations, Bushman conducted another experiment. He took 141 white students (65 percent female) and had them play either "WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010" or "Fight Night Round Four," which are both wrestling games. The results that he accounted for in the first experiment were only further supported in his second. They showed that the students who used a black avatar in either violent game acted more aggressively against a fictional partner than did the students who were assigned a white avatar.

In the last Grand Theft Auto, the first time a player is introduced to a black avatar, he/she is immediately instructed to steal a bike. To some, and to the creators, this may not seem like such a harmful matter . However, the creators do not see the underlying racism that is tied to such a mission.

This above example is a bit extreme, as it includes clips from an old Playstation game called "Punchout" that consists of very stereotypical character names. The video is only about four and a half minutes long and I just wanted to include it to show how stereotypical video games can really be, even in the simplest form. For example, there is a Russian character with the first name Vodka and an Italian with the name... .get this........... Pizza Pasta. I mean come on.




While reading the Huffington Post article, the only thing that I could think of is the following: If it is true that video games can seriously impact the way we think and act towards people, why not use it to our advantage? People are influenced by the race of an avatar that they are using. Good! Let's start creating video games that have black heros, black doctors, black caregivers, etc. I think if video games are that influential on peoples lives that they are literally convinced an avatar represents humanity, a huge change must be made in the design of the games and what role the characters play.

Freeman, David. "Video Games Promote Racist Thoughts & Behavior, Study Of White Gamers Suggests." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 25 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.